Daniel Silva - The Unlikely Spy

"And he's not coming here?"

"No."

"I want to show you something," he says. "Something that will make you feel wonderful."

His eyes are very damp now. He is smiling; his teeth are black and rotten. She becomes frightened for the first time. She tries to stand up but he grabs her by the shoulders and forces her down onto the blanket. She tries to scream but he smothers the sound with a big, hairy hand. Suddenly he is on top of her; she is paralyzed beneath the weight of him. He is reaching up her dress and pulling at her underwear.

The pain is like nothing she has ever felt. She feels she is being ripped apart. He pins her arms behind her head with one hand and covers her mouth with the other so no one will hear her scream. She feels the still-warm bodies of the dead rabbits pressing against her leg. Then the poacher's face becomes contorted, as if he is in pain, and it stops as suddenly as it began.

He is talking to her again.

"You saw the rabbits? You saw what I did to the rabbits?"

She tries to nod, but the hand over her mouth is pressing so hard she cannot move her head.

"If you ever tell anyone about what happened here today, I'll do the same to you. And then I'll do it to your father. I'll shoot you both, and then I'll hang your heads from my belt. Do you hear me, girl?"

She starts to cry.

"You're a very bad girl," he says. "Oh, yes, I can see that. I think you actually liked it."

Then he does it to her again.

The shaking starts. She has never dreamed it this way before. Someone is calling her name, Catherine… Catherine… wake up. Why is he calling me Catherine? My name is Anna…

Horst Neumann shook her once more, violently, and shouted, "Catherine, dammit! Wake up! We're in trouble!"

It was three a.m. when the Lysander broke through the thick clouds and bumped to a landing at the small RAF base two miles outside the town of Grimsby. Alfred Vicary had never flown in an airplane, and it was not an experience he wished to repeat soon. The heavy weather tossed the plane during the entire flight from London, and as they taxied toward the small operations hut Vicary was never so glad to see any place in all his life.

The pilot shut down the engine while a crewman opened the cabin door. Vicary, Harry Dalton, Clive Roach, and Peter Jordan quickly climbed down. Two men were waiting for them, a young square-shouldered RAF officer and a buff pockmarked man in a dilapidated raincoat.

The RAF man stuck out his hand and handled the introductions. "Squadron Leader Edmund Hughes. This is Chief Superintendent Roger Lockwood of the Lincolnshire County Constabulary. Come inside the operations hut. It's crude but dry, and we've set up a makeshift command post for you."

They went inside. The RAF officer said, "I suppose it's not as nice as your digs in London."

"You'd be surprised," Vicary said. It was a small room with a window overlooking the airfield. A large-scale map of Lincolnshire was tacked up on one wall, a desk with a pair of battered telephones opposite. "It will do just fine."

"We have a wireless and a teleprinter," Hughes said. "We even can manage some tea and cheese sandwiches. You look as though you could use something to eat."

"Thank you," Vicary said. "It's been a long day."

Hughes went out and Chief Superintendent Lockwood stepped forward.

"We've got men on every major road between here and the Wash," Lockwood said, his thick finger jabbing at the map. "In the smallest villages, they're just constables on bicycles, so I'm afraid they won't be able to do much if they spot them. But as they move closer to the coast, they'll be in trouble. Roadblocks here, here, here, and here. My best men, patrol cars, vans, and weapons."

"Very good. What about the coastline itself?"

"I've got a man on every dock and quay along the Lincolnshire coast and the Humber. If they try to steal a boat, I'll know about it."

"What about the open beaches?"

"That's another story. I don't have unlimited resources. I lost a lot of my good lads to the army, same as everybody else. I know these waters. I'm an amateur seaman myself. And I wouldn't want to head out to sea tonight in any boat I could launch from a beach."

"This weather may be the best friend we've got."

"Aye. One other thing, Major Vicary. Do we still need to pretend these are just a pair of ordinary criminals you're after?"

"Actually, Chief Superintendent, we do indeed."

The junction of the A16 and a smaller B-road lay just outside the town of Louth. Neumann had planned to leave the A16 at that point, take the B-road to the coast, turn onto another secondary road, and head north to Cleethorpes. There was just one problem. Half the police in Louth were standing in the junction. Neumann could see at least four men. As he approached, they shone their torches in his direction and waved for him to stop.

Catherine was awake now, startled. "What's going on?"

"End of the line, I'm afraid," Neumann said, bringing the van to a halt. "They've obviously been waiting for us. No talking our way out of this."

Catherine picked up her Mauser. "Who said anything about talking?"

One of the constables stepped forward, carrying a shotgun, and rapped on Neumann's window.

Neumann wound down the window and said, "Good evening. What's the problem?"

"Mind stepping out of the van, sir?"

"Actually, I do. It's late, I'm tired, the weather's dreadful, and I want to get where I'm going."

"And where would that be, sir?"

"Kingston," Neumann said, though he could see the constable was already doubting his story. Another constable appeared at Catherine's window. Two more took up positions behind the van.

The policeman pulled open Neumann's door, leveled the shotgun at his face, and said, "All right. Put your hands up where I can see them and get out of the van. Nice and slow."

Jenny Colville sat in the back of the darkened van, hands and feet bound, mouth gagged. Her wrists hurt. So did her neck and her back. She had been sitting on the floor of the van for how long? Two hours? Three hours? Maybe four? When the van slowed, she allowed herself a brief flash of hope. She thought, Maybe this will all be over soon and I can go back to Hampton Sands and Mary and Sean and Dad will be there and things will be like they used to be before he came and it will all turn out to be a bad dream and-she stopped herself. Better to be realistic. Better to think about what was really possible.

She watched them in the front seat. They had spoken softly in German for a long time, then the woman fell asleep, and now Neumann was shaking her and trying to wake her up. Ahead, through the windscreen, she saw light-beams of light-bouncing back and forth, like torches. She thought, Police officers would carry torches if they were blocking the road. Was it possible? Did they know that they were German spies and that she had been kidnapped? Were they looking for her?

The van stopped. She could see two policemen in front of the van and outside, near the back of the van, she could hear the footfalls and voices of at least two more. She heard the policeman tap on the glass. She saw Neumann wind down his window. She saw that he had a gun in his hand. Jenny looked at the woman. She had a gun in her hand too.

Then she remembered what happened in the barn. Two people got in their way-her father and Sean Dogherty-and they had killed them both. It was possible they had killed Mary too. They weren't going to surrender just because some country policemen told them to. They would kill the policemen too, just like they killed her father and Sean.